Clean as Keepsakes
by Rayless Night
Summary: Wounds and the worth, and the worthlessness, of an apology.


_Disclaimer: Atlus owns the __Persona__ series. Rating is for blood and language._

* * *

><p><strong>Clean as Keepsakes<strong>

Mitsuru takes care of them. From dialing for the ambulance to circling the body, watching jackets press into blood, supervising it all. In some dim corner of her thoughts, she's counting every time Akihiko's head falls, blood-slick gloves clamped around Shinjiro's mouth. Yamagishi's cheek is white, eyes glimmering, so scared she almost looks angry. Arisato's head is down – between rushing out of the dorm and now, Mitsuru has no clear memory of their leader's face – but she's kneeling across from Akihiko, Shinjiro between them. Mitsuru can see her shoulders, back arched, but she can't tell if their angle looks more protective or predatory. Arisato's hands dig into Shinjiro's wound, pressing down on his side, her fingers splotched and claw-like.

The siren, the flashing lights break over them, the red points of brightness swinging as endlessly as Mitsuru's thoughts.

* * *

><p>The doctor talks to her, and when it's over, Mitsuru clicks down the hospital hallway, finds them all in a cluster, shadowy under the florescent lights. Akihiko looks over when she comes, and that contact peels two years from them, down to the morning Shinjiro left the dorm. The afternoon Mitsuru spent walking the streets, feet smarting, heart pounding, searching for Akihiko while he searched for Shinjiro. The part scream, part growl she offered when she finally found him sitting on the dorm's front steps, head in hands. It's the only time she can remember when she was afraid Akihiko would hit her.<p>

He sees her face, reads it – Mitsuru has no idea what he finds there – and turns away, stalking down the hall, away from her and the ICU, fists swinging sharply with each step. Takeba has an arm around Yamagishi. Aigis stands by Arisato, silent, blank as the artificial light. Iori's eyes dart from Mitsuru to Arisato, linger on Arisato.

"They have him breathing again," Mitsuru says, voice slightly off-rhythm.

Takeba's eyes widen with something approaching relief, then wince again. Arisato is pale, face static. The shadow catches under her jaw, a sharper line than Mitsuru's used to.

"We should go home for the night," Mitsuru says, though she can guess everyone will want to talk. Getting them home is the first thing. Then she'll look for Akihiko.

When no one moves, she folds her arms so her fingers are hidden against her sides and tightens them, forcing that firmness into her eyes and mouth. She looks at Arisato. The shock is understandable – Mitsuru hasn't been home often lately, busy interrogating Yoshino and searching for information on Strega, but Arisato is affectionate and eager to make friends of all her teammates. She's probably more or less fond of Shinjiro. And no one was prepared for a night like tonight.

Must look for Amada as well, Mitsuru remembers. She thought she saw him hanging off to the side when the ambulance came, but has she seen him in the hospital?

Home first. Mitsuru stares at Arisato. She is the leader. She has to give the order. Arisato doesn't break eye-contact, but there's a flicker of movement – the soft swell of her throat as she swallows – and Mitsuru blinks down. In the florescent glare, Arisato's hands are still wet and red.

She can't have noticed. Mitsuru's about to say something, dig for a tissue, but she forces herself to lift her eyes. Arisato is the leader and Mitsuru knows what it's like not to be cared for.

Light breaks in Arisato's eyes – then is glossed over – and she nods, turning away, walking down the hall. Iori catches up to her and Mitsuru thinks she sees him put his arm around Arisato's shoulders – but Mitsuru's already walking fast, eyes looking ahead, past everyone else.

* * *

><p>Twenty-four hours later, Mitsuru hears the faucet pounding. Not in her own bathroom but farther off, one of the other girls awake and in the upstairs bathroom. She turns over, buries her face in her silk pillowcase, and hopes that lying still with her eyes closed will be an adequate substitute for sleep. But the water goes on too long, and more than keeping Mitsuru awake, it irritates her. This is not right. This is not what you do.<p>

She gets up, robe on, and follows the water-charge up a floor to the girls' bathroom, the door closed, the light shining through in precise geometry. She pauses. She never uses this bathroom. She isn't sure she's ever seen the inside. How big is it? Should she knock?

She knocks. The faucet shushes slightly but doesn't turn off. Arisato's voice comes after a moment, impatiently casual. "Hi?"

Mitsuru needn't have knocked; the bathroom's surprisingly large, several showers, several stalls, and a short bank of sinks. Arisato looks up from a dribbling faucet, hair down and disheveled, in an orange pajama shirt and shorts. No slippers, no robe. Water's splattered down her front, her sleeves rolled high above her elbows. The edges of the sink gleam wetly.

_What are you doing? _Mitsuru wonders, which translates into "You should be asleep."

Arisato turns back to the sink, cranking one of the handles back up, letting the water rush into her other palm. It takes Mitsuru a moment to realize she's holding something.

"What are you doing?"

Arisato hesitates while nothing changes in her face or stance, then shuts the water off, shakes some drops from her hand, and holds it up so Mitsuru can see. Mitsuru doesn't step inside. She can't say why, but she doesn't want to come closer to Arisato.

There's a twisted jumble on the younger girl's palm, light reflecting off a – a clock face? It's a wristwatch.

Arisato's face has slackened, her lower eyelids rounded, her mouth slumped. She tightens it a bit before speaking. "I got blood on it."

The leather wrist-band's drenched, but there are darker splotches across it. Mitsuru's gaze sidesteps around it, and Arisato's face, and her hands tighten, wishing she would... what? She does not place her hands upon people. She doesn't clasp fingers, she doesn't stroke cheeks and smooth back hair. And, for the moment, she doesn't look at Arisato.

"You'll ruin it with water. I have some – leather polish. I can – we'll see what that does."

Arisato smoothes out the watch. "Okay." More energy in her voice. "Great. Thanks, senpai." She folds her arms, pressing the watch against her water-soaked side.

Why is the watch important? Mitsuru does not take the time to ask.

* * *

><p>Mitsuru hears cursing.<p>

She pauses halfway to the staircase. Normally she'd ignore it as something beyond her business, but she happens to know that the dorm is mostly empty tonight. The juniors are being held at a meeting at Gekkoukan, half a caution to them, half an investigation for the sake of their parents and the school board. Even a week after Graduation Day, everyone's still talking. Akihiko and Ken are out, who knows where, but thankfully together. Mitsuru can trust Akihiko as long as he has someone to protect.

Mitsuru had, in fact, assumed she was the only one at home, which had made it the perfect opportunity to go through Arisato's room and make sure everything's gone. (She has to see it, the clean walls, the naked mattress, everything stripped to basic essentials.)

Now she stops on the second floor, listening for the voice again.

(She's been dreaming of Father's funeral, his bones ceremonially laid out, burnt clean as keepsakes ready to be sorted.)

She hears a cough, and almost without thinking, turns in her path, heading for the first door on the left.

(In her dreams, the light shifts, and they aren't her father's bones. They're smaller, jumbled, still smoking from the incinerator, and she can't even get at them, a crowd of strange mourners between her and the bone tray.)

She rests her hand on the door, then hesitantly raises it to knock.

(She wouldn't have been afraid to hold them.)

She knocks, startling herself out of her own dreams.

No answer.

Mitsuru steps back. Steps forward. Opens the door.

Shinjiro twists around to face her, not turning his entire body, and she can see his eyes clench with pain for less than a second before he goes blank.

After a moment, she notices then that he's sitting on the edge of his bed, jacket and sweater off and half-tumbled to the floor. She realizes that she should be taken aback and embarrassed, but she can't help feeling she missed her chance.

Shinjiro lowers his eyes from her face to his chest and blushes before snapping, "What?"

"Are you all right?" His back is mostly in shadow, so she can't see the wound below his shoulder, and he's turned so she can't see the other one on his stomach. He has something in his left hand, a tube of polysporin.

He hasn't answered the question yet, which means he won't. He shouldn't even be here, at home, but she and Akihiko had glared off the doctors. If he was well enough to leave the hospital, he was well enough to go where he wanted.

"What are you doing?"

"I apologize," Mitsuru says. "I just, I... There's so much to do."

"Yeah." He jerks his chin towards the door, but his voice is gentler than Akihiko's when he's angry. "So go do it."

But she doesn't move, except after a moment she shakes her head. There's so much to do, but maybe none of it will help anyway. Calls she has to make, people she must talk to, places that demand her, but does she really have the strength for it? In her dreams, she could sift over bones, give them all her attention and care, but in reality she always folds her arms, tucks her hands into herself.

"Kirijo. Go lie down or something."

She barely hears it. "I wish I... I wish I'd realized."

"You ain't going to leave?" Shinjiro shifts his weight, turns slightly away from her and tips the ointment tube into his hand.

"I'm not a fool. How couldn't I have seen she was dying?"

Shinjiro doesn't answer at first, his head lowered beyond the angle of his shoulders. "You don't notice everything, Kirijo."

Indignation flares weakly, then rises into something hotter. "She gave everything and we forgot it. We were – I never even – I couldn't apologize to her."

"'Cause you forgot?" She can see his bullet wound clearly now, moving as he moves that arm, curves it to his side.

There was so much she could've apologized for. Mitsuru swallows, throat swollen.

Shinjiro doesn't look at her again until he turns to study his shoulder wound. Doesn't look surprised that she's still there, but his mouth slants down, impatient or judgmental or sympathetic.

Is he waiting for her to leave and go back to her own business? She always does.

Abruptly – almost charging – Mitsuru crosses the room and drops onto the bed next to him. Shinjiro jolts away, keeping his shoulder turned to her, eyes wide. "What the hell – "

"It will be easier if I do it," she nearly snaps.

"Are you out of your – "

She closes her eyes, sucks in her breath, teeth lightly bared. "Please. Shinjiro. Allow me."

When she opens her eyes, Shinjiro's still watching her. She doesn't even realize she's holding his gaze until she sees his eyes soften slightly, uncertain and resigned.

He turns away, presenting his back and passing the tube under his arm. "Doesn't matter," he says, gruff. "Nobody sees them anyway."

The scar is small and ragged. Mitsuru touches some ointment to her fingertips, taps them once against the wound. Her fingers seem too long and brittle, broken bones tied loosely in place.

Shinjiro's shoulder blade vibrates when he speaks. "She's left us behind, more than we forgot her."

Mitsuru tentatively touches the wound again. He shivers. "Are you saying that evens it out?"

"I'm just saying what happened."

"Did you apologize to her?"

"What?"

"When – " Mitsuru's voice breaks. It isn't fair, she wants to say. _You hardly knew Minako. Why were you allowed to hold her in death? _

"I would have apologized to her," Mitsuru says.

Shinjiro stands without looking at her. He leans across the desk to stare out the window, the blinds latticing his skin. She can't read his expression except that he's purposefully hiding his face from her. She follows the line of his left arm, folded against himself, hand resting on his side.

"I apologized for forgetting," he says. "It didn't make it easier."

"I'm sorry – "

"Apologizing to _me_ now, Kirijo?"

For a moment, she tries to laugh – half a gasp – and then she stands, walks to the door.

"Don't keep turning things over." Shinjiro straightens, looks over at her. "Just keep your eyes open."


End file.
